Algirdas Julien Greimas
Lithuanian-French linguist
Died when: 74 years 355 days (899 months)Star Sign: Pisces
Algirdas Julien Greimas (French: [algi?das ?ylj?~ g??mas]; born Algirdas Julius Greimas; 9 March 1917 – 27 February 1992) was a Lithuanian literary scientist who wrote most of his body of work in French while living in France.
Greimas is known among other things for the Greimas Square (le carré sémiotique).He is, along with Roland Barthes, considered the most prominent of the French semioticians.
With his training in structural linguistics, he added to the theory of signification, plastic semiotics, and laid the foundations for the Parisian school of semiotics.
Among Greimas's major contributions to semiotics are the concepts of isotopy, the actantial model, the narrative program, and the semiotics of the natural world.
He also researched Lithuanian mythology and Proto-Indo-European religion, and was influential in semiotic literary criticism.